


Tomorrow (There would have been a time for such a word)

by Elizabeth_Woodville



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 23:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20984249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elizabeth_Woodville/pseuds/Elizabeth_Woodville
Summary: Having lots of feelings about 15x01, so here's a lil drabble I wrote waaay back for 14x01.Love me some Sam Angst, but I'm not sure I'm ready for THIS particular season...





	Tomorrow (There would have been a time for such a word)

**Author's Note:**

> Title plucked straight outta Billy Shakes' Scottish Masterpiece.

He should’ve known it wouldn’t last. That feeling of safety and security and home.

It never did. Not really. He’d lost it over and over again throughout the years, from the time he was six months old, right on up to his 35th birthday.

Sam thrived in routine. He had his rituals, the only sense of consistency he’d ever really had came from his day-to-day planning. He grew up on it, it’s what kept him going as the Winchester ping-pong ball bounced from city to city, state to state, monster to monster. 

Wake up. Breakfast. School. Library. Meet Dean at the front doors. Walk home. Dean would unlock the motel room door, Sam would start on homework. They’d watch Jeopardy while Dean made dinner. Sam ate, they’d chat, they’d work on their own tasks for awhile. Sam would scribble out differential equations, Dean would clean the guns, and they’d both head to bed. Wake up. Repeat.

It would change over the years. 

There were very few points in their lives when Sam and Dean were truly separated. There were hunts where Dean and Dad would go off for a few days, or weekends where Dean would go out to hustle pool and drink. 

_ T_he first time Sam had been away from Dean was when Sam was 12. Dean, he would learn later, was in a boys’ home in upstate New York. 

Next was about a year and a half later. The two weeks he spent in Flagstaff.

At 18, he’d run off again. Westward ho, off to seek his fortunes in California. There was no Dean, but there was Jess, a new ritual, a new routine to learn and live and love. It was all erased when she died. Burned when she did. 

It had been 18 years since he’d been a freshman at Stanford. And _ Jesus, _ what a thought that was. If you’d asked him where he thought he’d be in 18 years, he’d have said he’d be a hotshot lawyer with a wife and kids and a house and a dog. If you’d told him at eighteen where he’d actually be in eighteen years… 

It made his heart ache. To think about all the names and faces and lives lost over those eighteen years. All this time, and he could still see it, clear as day. The night he left. The days he spent walking the streets of Stanford, wandering the library. The hours of time he had with Jess. All that time, and it was never enough. 

Of course, he and Dean found each other again. Well, it was more along the lines of Dean came crashing back into his life at full-speed through the drafty window near the fire escape.

He didn’t remember the next time they were apart. Sam, after all, had died. 

He remembered watching invisible claws maul his brother, blood spurting across the room, green eyes that had always been so full of life, now staring blankly at the ceiling. He remembered refusing to let go of his brother’s body, wailing like a widow about to throw herself onto a funeral pyre. 

He remembered Bobby, his Bobby, pulling him away, leading him to the couch like a small child. Bobby didn’t drink. It was a mark of just how much pain he was in that he didn’t even attempt to drown it in liquor. 

He remembered being in prison for those long weeks. They’d separated him and his brother at the first chance they’d got.

But Dean came back. 

Somehow, he always did.

Sam had the sudden recollection of being five years old, and Dean holding his hand, walking him to kindergarten.

_ “Okay, Sammy. Remember what to do if you can’t find me?” _

_ “Stay where I am and you’ll come get me.” _

_ “Okay, Sammy. I’ll be home late. Don’t leave the house okay?” _

_ “What if you get lost?” _

_ “Don’t worry, I’ll come back.” _

_ “Have a good time! I’ll pick you up around nine, okay, Sammy?” _

_ “It’s _Sam.”

_ “Whatever, Sammy.” _

But he grew up. And he got to the age where Dean’s helicoptering was met with belligerence. 

_ Don’t tell me what to do. _

_ I’m fifteen, I can take care of myself. _

_ I’m leaving, Dean. I can’t live like this anymore. _

_ “You got to promise not to try to bring me back.“ _

_ “So then what am I supposed to do? “ _

_ (What am I supposed to do? God, Sammy…. What am I supposed to do?) _

_ “You go find Lisa. You pray to god she's dumb enough to take you in, and you – you have barbecues and go to football games. You go live some normal, apple-pie life, Dean. Promise me.“ _

Dean, of course, found him anyway.

Sam didn’t look for his brother during the year of Purgatory. He didn’t need to. The Dean-shaped absence in his life was a constant reminder. 

The routine was altered yet again that summer. The first few days after Dean’s… _departure _weren’t the worst.

Sam had actually managed to remain hopeful for the first 36 hours.

He hadn’t slept in 54 hours.

It all went downhill quickly from there.

His days went something like this:

Mom or Cas tries to persuade him to take a break.

Cue refusal.

Eventually doze off over mounds and mounds of books and papers and lore, only to wake up screaming from a nightmare.

Assure the others that he was fine, drink four cups of coffee, return to work.

Can’t focus. Go for a walk. Pace. Bite his nails to the quick. Listen to Cas and Mom discuss things in hushed tones. Pace some more.

Mom and/or Cas brings a plate of food. It’s ignored. He puked up his coffee and stomach acid sometime after his walk. He thinks about what Dean would say to that.

Quickly dismisses himself from the room, forgoing the conference meeting for a bathroom panic attack.

Cas knocks on the door quietly.

Sam pretends he’d not there.

Cas tells him he knows he’s in there.

Sam ignores him.

Cas sighs softly, slumped against the door. He goes off on a tangent about something stupid.

Cas leaves, and Sam retreats into the stash of hard liquor and the 73 open tabs on his laptop.

He’d stay awake all through the night, until he heard the sounds of doors opening, feet scuffling, breakfast being made.

He couldn’t sleep, but he couldn’t get out of bed either.

There was Dean, in his mind’s eye, flipping bacon and splattering pancake batter all over the steel countertops, the old radio plugged in beside him, blaring _Panama. _Dean, belting along in his own off-key rendition. Jack was sitting at the table, watching in wonder. Sam would roll his eyes. _It’s too early for this, Dean, _he’d probably say.

_Bitch, _Dean would retort, carefully extracting and sampling a strip of bacon, flinching and complaining when the hot grease burned his mouth. 

Sam would smirk, scraping some burnt eggs and a malformed blueberry pancake onto his plate, while Dean rummaged for the orange juice.

Cas would reprimand him for chugging straight from the carton, Dean would offer the angel a shot glass full of chocolate milk. Cas would shake his head, Dean would wink knowingly at Jack, setting a plate before him.

_Eat up, _he’d say.

_Do we have Cocoa Puffs? _Jack would ask.

_Those aren’t healthy, Jack, _Sam would say.

Dean would pull out a box of Lucky Charms, raising his eyebrows.

Sam, ultimately, would concede.

At least, that's how the routine _should have _been. 

But he hadn’t seen his brother in 21 days. And Dean was not racing to find him, because Dean wasn’t _ Dean. _

In all his life, he couldn’t recall feeling so lost.


End file.
